THE GREAT DENE RACE.

Old women simply brush or comb it backward. The hair of male Apaches is always trimmed and permitted to hang about, while some men of cither the Navaho or Apache tribes use bandana handkerchiefs as head-bands. This is also done in the north, but only with a view to remedying headaches.

Among the Hupas, the hair was either tied in two clubs hanging about to the right and to the left, or in a single queue which fell behind in ap- proved Déné style. A band of some kind was also often worn around the head. “A ring of stuffed buckskin about two inches thick, covered with the red scalps of woodpeckers, is still worn in some dances in which the regalia are not especially prescribed... Feathers or feathered darts are usually worn in the hair also”, The Hupas of old seem to have been more fastidious than usual with primitive races, since, according to Dr. P. E. Goddard, they some- times perfumed the hair with the yerba buena (Micromeria chamissonis) tied up therewith.

As to the Sarcees, the accompanying illustration will tell better than any words of mine of the alien influences which bear on their mode of wearing the hair. The main difference between that and the original Déné fashion consists mostly in the crown hair being bound up on the top, instead of on the back, of the head.

As to Facial Hair.

In common with the natives of northeastern Asia, our aborigines are re- markable for the scarcity of their facial hair. In fact, were this point of their physique taken as a criterion of ethnological certitude, those branches of the human family should be stamped as very closely related. However, it would be going beyond the requirements of truth to affirm that no cases of really heavy beards occur even among the Dénés. The Nahanais old man whose portrait is presented to the reader is not more than half as hairy as three or four individuals whom I know within the single Carrier tribe.

In most cases it would seem that the natives thought nature had been SO sparing with them in her distribution of that apanage of the male sex that what portion of it had fallen to their lot was not worth keeping. So, they very generally, though not invariably, plucked the few hairs that would grow on their chin, cheeks and upper lip.

This correcting of nature’s handiwork is common to all the tribes, and to many non-Déné races as well. Facial depilation is reported of the African Zungoone by Gmelin; of the Sumatrans, by Marsden; of the Mindanas is- landers, by Forrest; of the Pelly islanders, by Wilson; of the inhabitants of New Guinea, by Cartaret; of the natives of the Navigators’ Islands, by Bou- gainville; of the Nootkans, by Captain Cook, and of most American abori- gines by the first explorers; also of the Tuskis of Asia, by Lieut. Hooper.

* “Life and Culture of the Hupas”, p. 19.